In the last post, I went through the 6 processes in the Risk knowledge area (chapter 11 of the PMBOK® Guide).

In this post, I go through the 4 processes in the Procurement Management knowledge area (chapter 12 of the PMBOK® Guide).

Here’s where we are so far: the boxes in green are what has already been covered, and the boxes in yellow are being covered in this post.

Initiating

Planning

Executing

Monitoring & Controlling

Closing

Integration

6

1

1

1

2

1

Scope

5

3

2

Time

6

5

1

Cost

3

2

1

Quality

3

1

1

1

Human Resources

4

1

3

Communications

5

1

1

2

1

Risk

6

5

1

Procurements

4

1

1

1

1

2

20

8

10

2

Here’s the portion of the process matrix that lists the processes in the Risk Management knowledge area, which is chapter 11 of the PMBOK® Guide.

Knowledge area

#

Initiating

Planning

Executing

Monitoring & Controlling

Closing

Procurement

4

1

1

1

1

Here’s a description of the six processes that are included in the Risk Management Knowledge Area, 5 of which are in the Planning Process Group, and the remaining 1 of which is in the Monitoring & Controlling Process Group.

Verification that deliverables are acceptable, formal closure of contract.

12.1 Plan Procurements

This is where the company decides for components, software or whatever intermediate steps are needed to produce the deliverables, whether the company will make them in-house or whether it will be more cost-effective to have them made by a subcontractor or seller.

If the decision is to make them in-house, then the rest of the procurement processes 12.2-12.4 are cancelled because there are no procurements. However, if the decision is to have some of them made by sellers, then the potential sellers are identified.

12.2 Conduct Procurements

Here is where the contract is awarded through a bidding or proposal process to the seller that meets the criteria set out in 12.1 Plan Procurements.

12.3 Administer Procurements

Once the seller has been selected in 12.2 Conduct Procurements, the terms of the contract are fulfilled by the seller and the project manager watches over the relationship with the seller, the performance of the seller with respect to the terms of the contract, and if there are any conflicts, these are resolved.

12.4 Close Procurements

This is closely tied to the only other process that is in the Closing Process Group, namely, 4.6 Close Project or Phase under the Integration Management knowledge area. The work that the seller has done and the deliverables that the seller produces to help complete the project are verified as acceptable. This is where the company signs off on the completion of the contract, and brings it to formal closure.

This concludes the survey of the 42 project management processes giving their names and brief descriptions by knowledge area.

The next step in the memorization of the processes is to memorize their ORDER, which is the subject of the next step 4 in Process Mastery, namely, Gaming the System, which refers to playing various games to get one familiar with the order of the processes, this time not by knowledge area (horizontally in the matrix), but by process group (vertically in the matrix).

However, before going on to Step 4, I want to include a few tips on the brain dump for the formulas, because these, together with the 42 processes, constitute the bulk of the material you need to reproduce in the first 15 minutes of the examination time you are allotted.